


How Things Are Reaffirmed

by lizznotliz



Series: How Things Are Built [5]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Asexual Character, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 07:19:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11641683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizznotliz/pseuds/lizznotliz
Summary: Sometimes they just need to hear the other one say it. (I'm sure, Maggie says.) (You can ask for things, Alex says.)





	1. Chapter 1

It doesn't matter how many times Maggie says it.

Sometimes Alex just needs to hear it again.

"Are you sure?" She whispers in the dark. They both crawled into bed an hour ago, exhausted from the day's work, but Alex is still twitchy and she can't turn her brain off. Maggie has been quiet for a while now and Alex isn't even sure she's awake, but she knows she won't be able to sleep unless she asks the question.

(Honestly, she's kind of hoping Maggie is asleep. She knows what Maggie will say and she feels guilty for asking again, for needing to hear the answer again. She worries that, one day, the answer won't matter and that the asking will be what drives Maggie away. If Maggie's asleep, if she doesn't hear, maybe Alex can just trick herself into believing the answer tonight without being annoying.)

But Maggie rolls over into Alex's chest, burying her face in the crook of Alex's shoulder. "I'm sure, baby," Maggie mumbles, voice thick with sleep. Alex's breath stutters in her chest, the way it always does when Maggie affirms their relationship so simply, so easily. But Maggie can feel it, the way Alex's pulse jumps, and she nuzzles even closer. "Danvers?"

"Shh, go to sleep."

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Maggie presses a kiss against her neck. "Stop worrying."

"I..." Alex wants to say she's _not_ , she _isn't_ , she _wouldn't_ , but it would be a lie and she's too tired for pretenses.

"Danvers," Maggie says her name again, a little more awake this time, and the word is laced with fondness. "I'm sure." She shuffles around in the bed until she can bring up her left hand between them, laying her palm high on Alex's sternum. Alex can feel the cool metal of Maggie's engagement band on her skin where the collar of her sleep shirt has been pulled aside. "I wouldn't have said yes if I wasn't."

"I'm just checking," Alex says, the words confident but her tone shaky and small. It's easier to believe Maggie in the daylight, when they're out and moving and living. It's at night, sometimes, when the doubt creeps in, when they're tossed together in bed and alone. When Alex starts to wonder if Maggie really can do this for the rest of their lives.

"I know you are." Maggie tips her head and presses a kiss just to the side of Alex's mouth; she's not avoiding anything, she's just too sleepy to be coordinated. "And I love that you worry about me. It's sweet, if a little maddening." Alex shakes her head a bit, wrapping her arms more firmly around Maggie; she's definitely more awake than asleep now, if she's talking like that. Alex hadn't meant to wake her (even if a voice in the back of her head is _grateful_ , so very _grateful_ ). "Alex." Maggie's hand is on her chin, forcing Alex to look her in the eye as Maggie pulls away just enough to make it possible.

"Alex, I'm marrying you in a week."

"Yeah."

"I have never been more sure of anything in my life."

Alex fights against Maggie's hold, trying to duck her head away: "Mags--"

"And I have never been more excited at the prospect of never having sex ever again."

"Oh my _God_ , Maggie." Alex clutches at her, torn between laughing at Maggie's over the top statement or rolling out of bed and hiding in the bathroom. She knows what Maggie is trying to do, trying to show her how silly she's being, but even though she knows that she doesn't _feel_ silly. This doesn't feel small, like their disagreements over how to organize the closet or load the dishwasher. Maggie treats it like it is, but it's not. And Alex has learned to trust that Maggie is sincere when she says that her asexuality is not a burden on their relationship, but that doesn't mean Alex doesn't sometimes feel the weight of it when they're alone.

"Hey, hey," Maggie says, gently catching Alex's chin again. "Hey, I'm not making fun. You know I'm not."

"I know, I just--"

"You worry about me."

"About... us. You and us."

Maggie watches her for a moment, staring at her fiancée in the light of the moon that's cutting through the shitty curtains in Alex's bedroom. The lease on their new apartment starts three days after they get back from their honeymoon and Maggie's already told her they're getting nice, heavy curtains for the new bedroom. Maggie likes blackout curtains, especially when they get home from work after midnight and end up sleeping until noon, but for now, here in this bed in this half-packed apartment where their relationship started, she doesn't mind the moonlight on Alex's face.

"I love everything about you, Alex Danvers," Maggie whispers. "I love your asexuality. You wouldn't be you without it. And I'm going to love it on our wedding night and I'm going to love it for the rest of my life."

"Okay," Alex says, voice still small, but Maggie can tell she's gotten through.

"When we get to the hotel that night," she says, running her thumb over Alex's cheekbone, "can I lay in your lap while you play with my hair?"

"Whatever you want," Alex promises.

Maggie leans up on her elbow and kisses her, slow and warm. "You're what I want. You're all I'm ever going to need."


	2. Chapter 2

When Maggie gets home on Friday, she shuts the front door and slumps back against it, reaching out to drop her keys on the table near the door.

Only there is no table by the door yet because she's in  _their_  apartment, not  _Alex's_ , and they're still trying to figure out where the furniture goes. They've only been in their new place two weeks and everything is still new and confusing.

"Maggie?" Alex calls from the kitchen when she hears Maggie's keys smack against the floor. "You okay?"

Maggie grunts, loud enough for Alex to hear and know she's fine, but she's also exhausted and kinda frustrated with herself for forgetting they still need a table there, or a key rack, or something.

"Mags?" Alex pokes her head out of the doorway between the entryway and the kitchen. She smiles gently and leans down to grab the keys before Maggie can. "One of those days, huh?"

"At least I've got the weekend."

"They kick you out?"

"I have too much vacation time, even after the honeymoon. Cap says it's use-or-lose so I'm not allowed to show my face until Monday at noon."

Alex smiles, tucking Maggie's keys in her bag and then easing it off her shoulder before cupping her cheek and leaning in for a quick, chaste kiss. "J'onn said he's only calling me in this weekend for the apocalypse. We'll get something for our keys tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay."

"You sure you're alright?"

Maggie nods, though she still feels a bit out of sorts, and when Alex opens her arms Maggie tips forward into her chest. "Just... blah."

"I think I can fix that," Alex says, kissing the top of Maggie's head. "C'mon, into the kitchen."

There's Chinese food from Maggie's favorite take-out place on the table, the food still steaming in the boxes, and Alex has just opened a bottle of wine. Maggie grabs a springroll, perfectly warm, and bites into it, groaning appreciatively. "How'd you know when to order?" She asks around a mouthful of food.

Alex rolls her eyes to the ceiling, smiling sheepishly. "I texted Kara and she kept an ear out for your bike; when you hit 5th Street she swung by and zapped it."

"I knew I loved your sister for a reason."

Alex laughs, pushing Maggie into a chair. "Sit, eat. I'll get your drink."

Maggie does as she's told, some of the tension in her shoulders loosening. She doesn't have to pretend with Alex like she does at the station; she doesn't have to always be in control with Alex. She slumps in her chair and unwraps a pair of chopsticks. When she reaches out to grab one of the boxes of food, there's an envelope on the table underneath; the paper feels a bit damp from the steam, and the edges are curling slightly but she recognizes Alex's handwriting across the front.

_Pick one._

"Danvers, what's this?" She asks, waving the envelope over her head so Alex can see it at the counter where she's pouring the wine.

"It's for you."

"But what is it?"

"Open it."

"Ugh, fine." Maggie stabs her chopsticks into her food and then slides her pinky under the envelope's flap. Inside is a sheet of paper with the words  _List of Non-Sexual Intimacies_  at the top.

(There's a URL printed neatly at the bottom. There's an ad running along the right side of the page. Somehow that makes it... better? Like, Alex didn't try to make it nice. She found it - went looking for it? - and wanted her to have it so badly she just printed it off immediately. Maggie will bet a week's worth of donuts for Kara that she printed it off at work, too, and for a moment she imagines the printer jamming and Winn having to reset the whole thing, trying to print a test page from the buffer and finding this instead of a mission report.)

"Is... is that okay?" Alex asks hesitantly, and Maggie realizes she's been quiet for just a little too long, long enough that Alex has joined her at the table. "I thought, well, I was thinking about what you said a month or so ago at work today."

"I thought J'onn asked you to stop thinking about me so much at work."

Alex rolls her eyes: "I was just-- I know we're both happy, I know we've found our... whatever, but I just thought maybe we could find even more stuff that...  y'know, I mean--"

"Alex." Maggie lays her hand over Alex's clinging desperately to the edge of the table. "It's okay. It's... great, actually." Alex smiles at her, relieved.

She looks back at the list again, noticing quite a few things that they've already done or do regularly - playing with each other's hair or spooning or reading to each other or giving each other massages - and there are two at the bottom that are crossed off; Maggie thinks Alex did that because they were things she wouldn't be comfortable doing. There are maybe four or five dozen things on the list - some old, some new - but they all sound...  _good_.

"You want to do them all?" She asks.

"I want to do what we both want to do," Alex says confidently. "All or none, or we can start making up our own list. We have our staples but I just wanted to find us some new ideas, I guess. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated what you said back then."

"A month ago?"

"Right before the wedding, when you said you loved my being ace, when you said it wasn't a burden. I just wanted..."

_I just wanted to be good for you_ , is what Maggie hears, even though Alex doesn't say it. And Alex is always good for her, and she knows that Alex knows that, somewhere in the back of her head. But she also knows what Alex is trying to do here, to remind them both that there are other ways to be intimate, to be close, to be together without having sex.

She appreciates that more than words can say.

"So I, uh," she clears her throat, embarrassed briefly at the way the emotion of the moment made her voice crack, "so I can pick any one?"

"Anything on the list is fair game tonight," Alex promises. She unwraps her own chopsticks and starts to eat as Maggie reads through the list three times, trying to decide what she wants them to do. "Anything look good?"

"I... yeah," Maggie offers hesitantly.

"You don't  _have_  to pick something if you don't want to. Like I said, we can make up our own list."

"No, I..."

Alex leans forward, into Maggie's line of vision: "You know, for someone who's always telling me not to squash down my feelings and to ask for what I want, you're not great at taking your own advice." She softens the comment with a smile and a wink, and Maggie blushes because she knows it's true. It's easier for her to encourage that kind of behavior in Alex than it is to engage in it herself.

After another minute, she folds the list back up and carefully tucks it inside the envelope. She wants to save it. "So," Alex asks, "what'll it be?"

"Well, first, I want you to put your rings on," Maggie says, nodding at Alex's chest. Alex wears her engagement and wedding rings on a chain, tucked under her shirt; it's too dangerous for her to wear them at work. Maggie goes back and forth, depending on whether she's spending her day at the precinct or in the field. It doesn't bother Maggie that Alex doesn't wear her rings on her hand all the time - if anyone would understand, it's her - but she does get a thrill out of seeing them on Alex's finger when they're home, when they're alone. Alex unclasps the chain around her neck and lets the rings fall into her palm, but then she hands them over to Maggie so she can slide them on her finger.

"Better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Now what?"

"Can we, uh... heh." Maggie ducks her head. "On the list, there was one about feeding each other? Is that weird?"

"Nope; I saw that one, too. Actually, I was surprised we hadn't done it before." She reaches for the box of Chinese food Maggie had opened first, but Maggie stops her with a hand on hers.

Emboldened by Alex's easy assurances, Maggie continues, picking an old favorite: "And I want to dance. After dinner."

Alex smiles, flipping her palm up so she's holding Maggie's hand and can bring it up to her lips and kiss her knuckles. "That sounds like a perfect night to me." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Did Maggie get Alex a black ace ring for her engagement ring? I'm gonna say yeah.)


End file.
